


Pocket Full Of Dreams

by SinkingCanoe (CavalryofWoah)



Series: The Frat House AU no one wanted [2]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: AKA allura tries and fails to make friends, Allura (Voltron)-centric, Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Fraternity, Angst with a Happy Ending, Gen, Place Slowly Becomes Home People Slowly Become Family, THE BEGINNING OF THE FRATERNITY, and paperwork is harder than it has to be, but then friends find her anyways, i know nothing about starting a fraternity this is just allura mini angst, the other characters are there they just don't have a big role so I didn't tag them
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-15
Updated: 2017-03-15
Packaged: 2018-10-05 14:06:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,575
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10309910
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CavalryofWoah/pseuds/SinkingCanoe
Summary: “They’re a bit… rough around the edges, I admit.”“Rough is, perhaps, an understatement. Where did you even find them?”“Well… they just kind of happened.”AKA: Allura tries and fails to make friends, and in the end friends make her dreams come true.As it turns out, dreams are chaos.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Things I needed to do today: laundry, fertilize plants, grocery shopping.  
> Things I did today: fertilize plants, grocery shopping, write 1.5k of Allura angst in a weird AU.

“This,” Allura concedes, “was not my best idea.”

“Oh no, I think it worked out perfectly,” Coran says. “Truly, this is the cream of the crop!”

“They’re a bit… rough around the edges, I admit.”

“Rough is, perhaps, an understatement. Where did you even _find_ them?”

“Well… they just kind of happened.”

***

_Four Weeks Ago_

“Look, you need at least five people willing to be members of your fraternity before we can sign off on it.”

“What? But I have the paperwork! And the funding!” Allura replied, frustrated. It had taken her months to get all her ducks in a row, _months_. She was _not_ going to be turned away at the finish line.

“You don’t have the _people_. It doesn’t look good for the school administration to support projects that fail,” the unsympathetic employee explained. Allura couldn’t honestly tell you their name or title--they were merely the latest trial in a very long string of meetings and negotiations.

“I’m not going to fail,” she said. “My father led this fraternity for years, and I can do the same.”

“And the fraternity failed shortly after he graduated. Ms. Altea, re-starting a failed project is not something we take lightly.”

“Voltron didn’t fail, it was disbanded.”

“Ms. Altea,” the employee said stiffly. “I’m sorry,” they continued, shuffling papers that needed no shuffling. “You need at least five people before we can approve your authorization.”

Allura sighed, gathering her own papers back into their folders. “Then I’ll see you when I have five people.”

***

_Three Weeks Ago_

“Where the quiznack am I going to find five people?” Allura said, tugging her hair in despair.

Her captive audience, a pillow covered in mice, didn’t offer an answer.

Allura flopped down onto her bed, sending the lighter mice bouncing for a moment. “I don’t even _know_ five people!”

The largest mouse, Platt, sat up and offered her a crumb he was nibbling on. Allura laughed, wiping away a few tears. She bowed her head and accepted the crumb gracefully.

“At least I have you all,” she said. “We’re not completely alone, right? We have each other.”

Repeating her father’s words from her childhood immigration helped, a bit. It was true then and true now. She had Coran, she had the mice. She had her traditions, and herself. Altea was always with her.

And she would do her father proud.

“Okay,” Allura said, sitting up again and grabbing her tablet. “What haven’t we tried yet?”

***

_Two Weeks Ago_

“This is a disaster, Coran,” Allura said, clutching her phone with a white-knuckled grip. “Maybe they’re right. I can’t do this.”

_“You can do anything you set your mind to, Allura. Your father was a tremendous diplomat, and I know he passed that skill on to you. Just… talk to people about what you believe in. They’ll see what I do.”_

“And what exactly do you see? A grad student failing her father’s legacy because she can’t make friends?”

_“A talented young woman incredibly devoted to family, legacy, and community service. And, at the very least, we have the house nearly fixed up! Progress is happening.”_

“Yes, I suppose it is,” she said, doing her best to perk up for Coran. He’d helped Allura so much, for nothing in return. He didn’t deserve to be the target of her rising frustration. “I have to go, I need to hit the library.”

 _“Alright. I’ll see you next weekend?”_ Coran seemed hesitant, but it was hard to tell over the scratchy connection. His phone was ancient.

“Of course, Coran. Goodbye.”

_“Goodbye, Princess.”_

The beep-boop of the call ending seemed final and lonely. Grief rose briefly in Allura’s chest, but she shoved it down. The nickname hurt some days more than others, but she refused to be weak.

She was just tired.

***

_Later That Day, Two Weeks Ago_

“-ey? Hello?”

Allura groaned, turning away from the sound and tucking her head further into her arms.

“Hey, are you alright?”

A hand grabbed her shoulder, and before she was awake she was moving.

“Ow! Hey, hey! Le’go!”

“Oh no,” she breathed.

Allura released the boy quickly, stepping back and blinking the sleep from her eyes. In her drowsy state, she’d knocked over her chair and brought the stranger to his knees, arm twisted painfully behind his back.

“I’m sorry, I just--I was--sorry…”

The boy turned to face her again, rubbing his no-doubt sore shoulder ruefully. “I was just trying to help. You’ve been asleep for a while.”

“Oh no,” Allura said, eyes wide. She fumbled in her pockets for her phone, before remembering that this pair of leggings didn’t have pockets. Where had she left the darn thing… “What time is it?”

This section of the library was underground, no windows to protect the older books. No sunlight or, heavens forbid, moonlight, to clue her in.

The boy blinked and checked his phone. “Uh, like eight? The library is closing soon.”

“Oh _no_.”

“You keep saying that. What’s wrong?”

“You mean other than unexpectedly sleeping through half the day?” Allura asked.

“I wasted both study time and recruiting time. I’m quiznacked.”

“Quiz-what?” the boy asked, puzzled. “And recruiting for what?”

“I’m--it’s sort of a long story, but I’m trying to restart my father’s old fraternity and I need at least five members before the school will authorize it.”

“That only answered half my questions, but okay. What’s your fraternity like?”

“Huh?” Allura asked, starting to pick up the books she’d knocked off the table mid-wake-up. “Why?”

“I’ve been trying to convince my friend Hunk to pledge a fraternity with me,” he explained. “But we haven’t decided for sure yet.”

“So?” Allura demanded, heart racing in her chest.

The boy handed her the last book and spun out a chair to sit in it backwards. “So, the name’s Lance! Convince me.”

***

_One Week Ago_

“How did you… what?” Allura couldn’t believe her eyes.

Lance had bounded up to her in the quad with the copy of the fraternity constitution she’d given him. His finger tapped impatiently on the member signee section again, where, sure enough, five names had been signed. “I did it!”

“Okay,” she said slowly, “but _how_?”

“Well, I convinced Hunk-” The moving mountain behind Lance waved reluctantly. “-and then we told Pidge she’d have free non-campus wifi. Pidge called dibs on using a room for her mad scientist lab and promised to bring Shiro.”

“Who’s Shiro?”

“Oh, Shiro’s great. He’s a grad student, but so are you? So I figured that was allowed. He’s a badass, he TA’s my physics class and I hear he works as, like, a bouncer downtown.”

“Oh. That’s good,” Allura said faintly. Her eyes were still glued to the names that would make her dream possible.

“Yup. And everyone knows that where Shiro goes, Keith follows, so that was five. That _is_ enough, right?” Lance asked, squinting down at the page himself.

“Yes, yes. Yes yes  _yes!_ ” Allura grabbed Lance’s hands, crinkling the paper in her excitement, and shook him back and forth.

Lance grinned, freeing a hand to pull Hunk into the excitement circle as well.

“Oh boy,” Hunk said. Admirably, he went with it, even spinning them both under his raised arms. That was no small feat, since neither Lance nor Allura were particularly short--and she was wearing heeled boots.

“So,” Lance asked, wiggling his eyebrows alarmingly, “when’s move-in day?”

“First, I have to get this submitted to the adminstration office, and argue with half a dozen people, but… Lance?”

Oblivious to the shifting mood, Lance fidgeted absently, excited. “Yeah?”

Allura leaned over and kissed each of his cheeks, as she would a sibling in her home country. “Thank you.”

As she ran off, making remarkable time in three inch heels, she heard him whoop and demand ‘the highest of fives’ from Hunk.

Allura rolled her eyes, but she uncrumbled the constitution and smiled.

***

_Today_

“Allura, are you telling me you only met _one_ of them before you inducted them into your fraternity?” Coran asks, stroking his mustache.

She winces. “Yes?”

“No, no, that’s… uh… fine. I’m sure the new paladins will suit nicely.”

“Hey, does anyone need the fire extinguisher anytime soon?” number five calls from the entry hall, the aforementioned extinguisher in one hand and a… robot? in the other.

“No! And neither do you, Pidge!” Lance replies, sliding down the oldwood mahogany banister like it's a playground instead of a handmade antique.

“Maybe, actually?”

“Keith?” Allura is 80% certain this one is Shiro, Lance's badass TA. He _looks_ like a badass TA.

“Yeah?”

“No.”

“But-!” Apparently-Keith protests, earnestly waving his arms.

“No.”

“Unfair, but whatever. Hey, is there a good place to hang a punching bag?” Keith asks, turning to Allura and Coran.

Allura smirks, and Coran sighs. “Oh no,” he mutters.

“There’s already a few set up in the basement gym, but we can add yours if there’s room,” Allura says smugly, examining her nails.

Keith brightens, smiling faintly. “Basement gym? Sweet.”

“This way, I’ll show you.”

“Holy crow!” Lance shouts in glee, having wandered off down the hall.

“Lance?” Hunk calls back from the kitchen. More than half his boxes had gone in there.

“There’s a hot tub!”

“Wait, really?” Pidge says, finally putting the fire extinguisher back on the wall where it belongs. “Lemme see!”

“This,” Coran says, “should prove interesting.”

_Clunk-clatter._

“Number two! What are you doing to my kitchen?!”

“M _-ICE INFESTATION!_ ” Shiro screeches.

**Author's Note:**

> Come talk to me on tumblr, I'm lonely.  
> https://sinkingcanoe.tumblr.com


End file.
